"Where is he?"

The question rang through the empty house.

I didn't really expect an answer, but still, it was nice to make-believe.

"He's gotta' be somewhere..."

"Sora, honey...he's gone. He went to...he went away, to a magical place; he's going to see a few angels, and your mother."

Innocent cerulean eyes stared at the red headed man, whose jade were tainted with knowing. With knowing of where the blonde had really gone.

He just didn't have the heart to tell the eight year old where his big brother had gone.

"Is he coming back?"

Swallowing thickly, he said,

"Maybe. One day."

Sora looked at the floor, eyes beginning to fill with a salty liquid.

"Why didn't he say good bye?"

No one had ever answered my question.

He was just...gone.

I really didn't believe it at first.

Roxy would never leave to travel without saying good bye first, without promising to get me a souvenir, without saying he wouldn't forget about me.

I suppose...I had really discovered the truth on my own.

When I went inside his room, against my father's many tearful wishes, I found his blanky.

He never goes away without his marvelous, soft sky blanket.

When I found it, a part of me was in denial.

He would have to come back, some day. He would have to get his blanky. He's afraid of the dark, only the blanky can keep him safe, so he has to come back.

The other, realistic side of my nine year old being, realized the cold, hard truth.

He wasn't coming back. Ever.

Even now, eight years without him passed, a small part of me wants to hope.

But that other side, ever a pain in my side, is still there.

It tells me to hurry up and pack, for the moving van will be here soon, and it would be very, very rude to keep the nice man who drives it waiting.

I don't want to leave.

I look around the hollow, now-white room.

Memories are painful.

Axel must've thought so too. He, once a great friend, gradually stopped visiting me after we went to that room.

The room I'll never forget.

It was a room where everyone had to wear black, even me. Everyone watched a shiny, small black case at the front of the room, and a man talked about my brother, what a good kid he was.

Lord, I was naïve.

I didn't understand why everyone was talking about him, he was just traveling, wasn't he?

Why was everyone crying?

I only just, after indulging myself in a heated argument with my father, realized how he went.

There was a shooting in the streets, and he had been one of those "casualties."

Needless to say, I don't speak much to father anymore.

I close my eyes.

I'm much better than I had been last year.

And the year before that.

And the year before that one too.

I don't want to start crying if his name happens to be mentioned; I don't want to hurt anyone who happens to bring up his name because it hurts me. Because it hurts my heart.

Nevertheless, even as I take one last look around his long-evacuated room, I won't be able to ever fully let him go.

I don't think anyone can.

Click.


This is kinda...my dedication to a good friend—Red Fox Prince.

I really couldn't believe that he passed, and I still can't quite grasp the idea.

But this is for him.

Because I'll miss him.